Perry’s arrival in 1853 unraveled the Tokugawa peace and created the first mass demand for working swords in two centuries. Kiyomaro, called the Masamune of Yotsuya, died on its eve; Munetsugu and Yukihide carried the boom to the end.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatch栗原信秀は、幕末の巨匠である源清磨の高弟である。文政十二年に京都に上り鏡師になったが、嘉永三年三十四歳で江戸に出て窪田清音を介して清麿門に入り刀鍛冶となった。清麿とはわずか二歳違いであり、弟子というよりは弟分の待遇であった。現存する信秀の作刀で最も時代の遡るものは、嘉永五年記であることから、実際に師事した期間は短かったものと思われる。天才清麿に負けぬ天才肌であり四年で独立する。嘉永六年には「浦賀打」がある。慶応元年春、上洛して筑前守受領し、高野山の奥の院に清麿を追善する碑を建て、永代供養の位牌を納めている。これには余程の費用がかかっており、清麿との深いつながりを窺い知る事が出来る。その後大阪に滞在した。同地での作刀は慶応元年十月より始まり、同三年正月まで続いている。のちに江戸に戻り、明治二年には明治天皇の御番鍛冶に任命され、佩刀を献上しその地位を不動のものとする。明治七年夏、越後三条に帰り、同十年には弥彦神社の御神鏡の制作を行っている。明治十三年一月二十五日、東京本郷元町の養子信親宅に於いて、六十六歳で没している。彼の技量は清麿一門の中でも最も卓越しており、師清麿に迫る出来映えのものがある。また彫物を得意とし、多くの作品に施しているが、彫の浅い繊細な彫法は彼独特のものである。 この刀は幅広で鋒が伸び、長寸で、身幅の割に鎬幅が狭めとなり、平肉があまりつかず、ふくら枯れごころとなるなどの体配で、新々刀の中でも清麿及びその一門によく見る独特の刀姿であり、姿格好が一際豪壮である。鍛は板目が肌立ちごころに、総じて流れ、地沸が厚くつき、地景がよく入り、刃文は互の目乱れに角ばる刃・頭の丸い互の目・尖り刃等を交えた特徴的な焼刃をみせ、足が長くよく入り、沸がよくつき、総体に砂流しがかかり、随所に例によって太い金筋が入り、匂口が明るいなどの出来口を表している。殊に帽子は乱れ込んで先が掃きかけるなどの出来口で、彼の本領が遺憾無く発揮されている。さらに刃中に焼の抜けたような丸い玉（島刃）が看て取れるが、これも清麿及び一門によく見る態である。豪壮な刃姿と華やかな焼刃とが相俟って、一際覇気がある。なお、文久二年までの作には「栗原謙司信秀」と長銘にきったものが多いが、文久三年より元治二年にかけての作は、本刀に見るように「平信秀」三字銘、或は「信秀」と二字銘にきるのが常である。またこの期の茎は特に長くなる点も見どころである。文久四年二月二十日に改元されているところから、この作は改元直後の作品であることが理解され、資料的にも価値が高い。
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Kurihara Nobuhide, Yamaura Kiyomaro school (shinshinto) · Musashi · around 1857-1867
Fujishiro Jo-jo saku · Tōken Taikan top 10%
4 pieces on the market now
Kurihara Kenji Nobuhide was born at Sanjō in Echigo and began life as a maker of metal mirrors, turning to the sword only around Kaei 3 when he entered the Edo workshop of Yamaura Kiyomaro at Yotsuya. Of the master's pupils he is the one the published sources place nearest the source: examining a blade made before he took his title, the NBTHK writes that 'his technique was, among the members of that school, the closest to approaching the level of his master'[[c:1]]. He received the honorary title Chikuzen no Kami in the fifth month of Keiō 1, lived three years at Osaka, returned to Edo, and after the Haitōrei went home to Echigo and forged only a little until his death in Meiji 13. He signed Nobuhide, often Taira Nobuhide and, after the title, Kurihara Chikuzen no Kami Taira Nobuhide. With Kiyondo he is one of the two hands who carried the Kaei-era Sōshū revival of the Yotsuya Masamune into the Bakumatsu and early Meiji.
What he aimed at is his teacher's manner, and within it the Shizu vein Kiyomaro favoured most. The published commentary states plainly that his workmanship 'resembles his teacher and excels in the Shizu tradition'[[c:2]]. The temper is a gunome-midare into which he sets togariba and an angular kaku-gunome, a chōji feeling entering and at times mixing in, with ashi and yō well in. The activity is that of a deep nie edge: ko-nie adheres well, sunagashi streams through, and long kinsuji enter frequently, the nioiguchi bright and clear. The bōshi runs midare-komi and turns with a pointed tendency, often with hakikake, sometimes thrusting up to a small round. On a wide hira-zukuri wakizashi the judges read exactly this hand at full strength, 'a work full of commanding spirit, sunagashi and kinsuji operating repeatedly, giving a powerful impression'[[c:3]].
The jigane is where his closeness to Kiyomaro tells most. Over an itame that flows and stands a little, at times mixed with masame and mokume, he lays a thick ji-nie with chikei entering frequently, the steel clear. There is no utsuri: this is a shinshintō hand reaching back to Sōshū through Shizu, not a Bizen one, and the brightness lives in the nie of ji and ha rather than in any reflection. His swords are imposing in shape, wide in body, the kasane often thin and the sori shallow, the kissaki extended or run to an ō-kissaki, several with a sakizori tendency. Set against this strength the published sources are candid about the limit of the inheritance: his spirit and forcefulness, they note more than once, do not reach his master's, even as the deftness of the work is beyond question.
His own tell, the feature that is his alone in the school, is the carving. The mirror-maker's training gave him a hand for metal that the others lacked, and the NBTHK records that within the Yamaura line 'there are no blades but his that bear carvings'[[c:4]]. The motifs are diverse and distinctively his: a grass-style kurikara, a jewel-chasing dragon, a dragon-riding Kannon, Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto and mountain cherry at the koshimoto, bonji and suken beneath futasuji-hi and bō-hi. From Meiji 1, after study with the metal-artist Kanō Natsuo, his carving changes markedly into a shallow, low-relief manner. The form that accompanies the carving is the katakiriba-zukuri, which the published sources note is not uncommonly encountered among his swords, alongside the wide hira-zukuri sunobi wakizashi. Carving was so much the point of his work that on one entirely uncarved katana the judges turn the absence into praise: with no horimono to occupy the eye, they write, the blade is 'all the more such that it could be mistaken for his teacher Kiyomaro'[[c:5]].
What separates him from his teacher is named in the commentary itself, and it is a matter of degree, not of kind. He works the same flowing itame with thick ji-nie and chikei, the same gunome-midare deep in nie with sunagashi and kinsuji, the same pointed bōshi; but where Kiyomaro's hand is read as overwhelming in spirit, Nobuhide's is read as the most skillful approach to it, the closest the school came. Among the Kiyomaro pupils his is the carved hand, the Osaka and Echigo wandering hand, the one whose blades can be dated and placed by their signatures and titles. He is therefore the open, knowable face of a school whose founder is the more mythologized for his short and violent life.
For the collector he is an attainable Kiyomaro-school name of real quality. Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku, and the Tōkō Taikan values his work highly among shinshintō smiths. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs instead through the Jūyō Tōken rank, where something over thirty of his signed katana, wakizashi and naginata are designated. His provenance is grounded and historically resonant rather than broad: one katakiriba wakizashi of Keiō 1, the published sources record, 'was presented to Shogun Yoshinobu'[[c:6]], and a blade is preserved at the Hachiman shrine of his native Sanjō in Echigo. Most designated blades are held rather than traded, and only a small share fall in the tradeable tier, so a signed Nobuhide reaches the market only from time to time. When one does, it is among the most rewarding ways a collector can hold the Kiyomaro Sōshū manner, signed, dated, and often carried by his own carving.
Where Nobuhide stands among comparable artisans: across all of nihontō, and within tradition, era, and period. The tiers (Foremost · Leading · Major · Notable) weigh official designations from the NBTHK and Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs, together with historical honors of lasting repute such as the Sansaku and Meibutsu-chō.
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Years he was demonstrably active, proven by signed-and-dated blades
Shinshinto · Musashi
16 pieces on the market now
The Kiyomaro school gathered in the workshops of Yotsuya in Edo around the middle of the nineteenth century, its founder Yamaura Kiyomaro (清麿) born in Bunka 10 (1813) at Akaiwa village in the Komoro district of Shinano, the second son of the country gentry-warrior Yamaura Nobukaze. He learned forging first under the Ueda-domain smith Kawamura Toshitaka, signing his early blades Masayuki, went up to Edo in Tenpo 6 (1835) under the patronage of the military scholar Kubota Kiyone, and in the autumn of Koka 3 (1846) settled at Iga-cho in Yotsuya and changed his signature to Kiyomaro; he died by his own hand at forty-two in Kaei 7 (1854). Around him moved his elder brother Yamaura Masao (真雄/正雄), who took the same instruction from Toshitaka and walked the same course from choji into Soshu-den, and the pupils who entered the Yotsuya forge in its final years: Kurihara Nobuhide (信秀), a mirror-maker from Sanjo in Echigo whom the published sources place nearest the master's hand; Saito Kiyondo (清人) of Dewa, who afterward settled his teacher's sword debts and carried the manner into early Meiji; and the wider circle of associates and patrons through which the line passed. The shared vocabulary of the school is a powerful Soshu-revival manner. Over an itame that flows and stands a little, well packed and at times opening into mokume and o-itame, the smiths lay thick ji-nie with frequent chikei, the steel clear and without utsuri, for this is a late hand reaching back five centuries to Sagami rather than a Bizen revival. The temper is an o-midare or gunome-midare mixed with ko-notare, the ashi and yo entering, the nie thick and gathering coarse in clusters of ara-nie, with long kinsuji and streaming sunagashi running through nearly every blade; the boshi answers in a midare-komi turning pointed with hakikake. A Bizen-leaning side survives from the early years in the residual choji that shades into the mature work. Within this common ground the hands diverge. Kiyomaro's is read as the overwhelming one, his Soshu-den reaching the upper transmission with the Shizu vein as his forte of fortes, the NBTHK calling his work 「覇気に満ちている」, filled with commanding spirit.
Masao's grounded forging is candidly weighed against his brother's, the texts noting that his chikei, sunagashi, and kinsuji run fewer and the quality does not reach Kiyomaro's level. Nobuhide is named the closest approach to the master and is alone in the school for his carving, a mirror-maker's hand that set kurikara, dragons, and bonji into blades the others left plain. Kiyondo holds the round-headed gunome-midare at full strength and adds a manner of his own, a bright suguha aligned with the Yamato tradition that Kiyomaro never worked. To kantei the school, read first the imposing shape particular to the Yamaura line: a wide body with little taper, the sori toward the point, a chu-kissaki extended or run to an o-kissaki whose fukura is allowed to wither for a sharp impression, often a shobu-zukuri or kanmuri-otoshi wakizashi. Read then the nie, thick in ji and ha, the chikei and the conspicuous kinsuji and sunagashi that mark the force of the steel rather than any borrowed pattern. Carving narrows the field to Nobuhide; a Yamato suguha narrows it to Kiyondo. Kiyomaro stands at the head of the line, ranked by the published sources as high as Kotetsu and named without question the leading master among the shinshinto, the smith called the Yotsuya Masamune (四谷正宗). His extant work is scarce and closely held, passing through documented hands such as the Iwasaki family and the Seikado Bunko, and reaches the market only from time to time and at the very top of it. The pupils and the elder brother offer the more attainable face of the circle, signed and dated blades that come to a collector with patience; a signed example of any of these hands is a document of the moment when Soshu was reborn in Edo. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Kiyomaro清麿 | 1839-1854 | 73 |
| Nobuhide信秀 | 1857-1867 | 34 |
| Kiyondo清人 | 1848-1868 | 10 |
| Masao真雄 | 1844-1866 | 7 |
| Masanao正直 | 1865-1868 | 3 |
Bakumatsu: the last war market
Perry’s arrival in 1853 unraveled the Tokugawa peace and created the first mass demand for working swords in two centuries. Kiyomaro, called the Masamune of Yotsuya, died on its eve; Munetsugu and Yukihide carried the boom to the end.
A Hozon-certified blade judged to show notably superior workmanship and a better state of preservation. The bar is higher: re-tempered blades and most unsigned Muromachi/Edo works are excluded.
The NBTHK (Nihon Bijutsu Tōken Hozon Kyōkai, the Society for the Preservation of Japanese Art Swords) is a public-interest incorporated foundation founded in 1948 and supervised by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs (Bunkachō); it is based at the Japanese Sword Museum in Tokyo. Its expert panels physically examine each submitted work (shinsa) and issue a certificate (kanteishō) ranking it by artistic and historical merit. NBTHK papers are the most widely recognized standard of authentication for Japanese swords and fittings.
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